“Won/Lost”

“The electorate has spoken…?”

United States voter turnout:

231.5 M eligible voters

128.5 M voted

46.9% didn’t vote…

If you peel back the clock to Nov 2008, you find a very similar response, only from the opposite side of this equation. The United States of America is far too complex to distill our society down to two basic components. I realize we love to emotionally hold the historical relevance of the two party system with great regard, but does it adequately represent the social construct of 2016?

The two powerhouses representing this situation work tirelessly at keeping it this way. Campaign finance is rigged for their benefit, and the idea of raising a pool of funds large enough to wedge into this staus quo is unrealistic. Even Trump had to use the GOP as a surrogate for his aspirations to the White House. The Koch brothers pour billions of their dollars into this broken system with hopes of reducing the governments role in our society. Charlie Koch openly admitted such in an interview with 60 Minutes, stating his purpose and acknowledging his intent. Given what we know about U.S. demographics, we know only a limited percentage of those 231.5 million eligible voters possess this capacity to buy their way.

The effort it takes to cast your vote is not “spur of the moment” type of involvement. It’s not like deciding what you want for dinner. It must be planned and prepared for more like a special event. You wouldn’t accept an invitation to any other event of such magnitude, and then only allow yourself an hour to prepare and execute your decision? It’s EVERY citizens responsibility to accept this challenge, not just the ones who find it convenient. If ANYONE believes their vote doesn’t matter, that it won’t change anything, might call Hilary Clinton to get her views on the subject.

“Sad, Mad, Glad, Hurt, Scared, Ashamed…”

Here lies the issue for the 128.5 million voters overcoming the inconvenience of casting their votes. These words were presented to my by a psychologist I know. I asked him what these words represent? His reply was concise, “The human emotions” but there’s only one for happy? “I know, humans are anxiously distressed whenever they’re not happy”! Sports fans are never more devastated than when their team is upset by an underdog. Humans that identify themselves with any form of ideology feel this same way about themselves whenever it comes to religion, politics, and social acceptance. Early childhood development is where this sense of self is established, and self esteem gives us the power to overcome this state of insecurity that pushes us toward a need to belong to something bigger than ourselves. Once you identify the small percentage of our eligible voters receiving early childhood education rather than just daycare, you start to build the supporting story for this election. People obviously believe they belong to one of the two evils…or they simply don’t belong?